Foucault’s remarks on the difference between archaeology and genealogy are generally rather vague and confusing. The tools Foucault uses to practice both methods are to all intents and purposes the same. But, if archaeology addresses a level at which differences and similarities are determined, a level where things are simply organized to produce manageable forms of knowledge, the stakes are much higher for genealogy. Genealogy deals with precisely the same substrata of knowledge and culture, but Foucault now describes it as a level where the grounds of the true and the false come to be distinguished via mechanisms of power.
